Justin has said in a very direct way that CFFB IS BETTER. He has also said that whether a coach implements CFFB or not, he/she will still have to program specifically for his athletes.

Now, understand I am not trying to play "bait the CFer here"... I have a good friend who knows Justin and says good things about him. So I am interested in his analysis of the situation.

And I think I explained how I see the situation in an earlier post. There are certain things that must be done to train for football. Metobolic conditioning, speed work, skill work, strength work. All coaches, good and bad, do all these things. Good ones program them and coach them well, bad ones dont.

i THINK that Justin has indicated that he believes that an increased emphasis on metcon is how CFFB is better than the current thinking on FB training, I will wait for him to confirm this. And maybe for him to explain how CFFB programing can be better given his statement about each coach still having to program according to his own individual athletes.

And just to be honest, I expected Justin to emphasise the metcon aspect of CFFB, and its superiority... and I disagree. I actually think that most football programs include TOO MUCH conditioning work throughout most of the year... and I think that if I have understood his position correctly, we will have an interesting discussion.

I'd tend to agree with what I believe your position is.. a player (particularly linemen) who's just getting laid out every play is pretty much useless, regardless of his metabolic conditioning level. Runners who can't drive into people wont go far. Etc.

But like I said before in regards to bad programs... I know of one school in particular whose given training is really bad... the S&C guy even throws in random stuff for seemingly no reason.. and has gotten at least one kid fairly grievously injured because of it.

I know a ton of BAD programs. I also know a few good ones. i ALSO know the restrictions in terms of time/number of platforms/number of kids... that these HS coaches labor under. And I know the "ideal" programs that many of them would like to implement if they didnt have said restrictions.

I just wonder how CF Football will improve all this. Honestly and sincerely... if they have a better idea, then I will be all for it. And if they do, then I think Justin is a smart guy and he will articulate it.

Justin,
What I was thinking was more in line with "How is CFFB better than current FB training", or "How is CFFB going to improve current FB training?"

Here are my thoughts:

Let's assume CFFB will be fairly effective -- moreso than the average program -- and therefore a fair number of programs will benefit from adopting it. With this assumption in mind, I want to consider three different categories of coaches, and how they might benefit from CFFB:

Good coaches. They know what they're doing and won't benefit from CFFB

Bad coaches, who are too stubborn, stupid, or arrogant to change what they do. They won't benefit from CFFB.

Bad or mediocre coaches who want to improve. They will benefit from CFFB. If they follow CFFB their players will stronger/faster/etc. By doing something that actually works they can begin to understand what is effective and how to construct their own effective routines. Hopefully the CFFB exercise demos, when they come, will be high quality like most of the CF ones and so coaches can see what a real squat/DL/whatever looks like. The forum should also be useful. In the same way that CF was the "gateway drug" for many people here, I hope CFFB will send people to more specialised sites where they can acquire more detailed knowledge.

An anecdote: I'm not in the US and I have no involvement in (American) football. However I do study at a University that consistently finishes in the top 3 in the British Universities competition, and I believe has the best Sports Science dept in the country. I train at the same gym as our rugby team, track guys, and so on. Their training is rubbish -- endless sets of curls, 1/4 squats and so on. I'm stronger than 90% of the guys at the gym and I'm a 70kg weakling. I know the rugby team has a coach, and I'm sure he's trying to do a good job, but judging from what I see in the gym, and the number of injuries I see at the few games I go to, it isn't that effective. The competition is equally weak so the results don't seem adversely impacted, but I'm sure better training would make a huge difference on the pitch and might get some guys to the level where they could compete professionally. CFFB would probably be a great place to start.

Basically, I think there is enormous value in high quality readily available information. As many people have said there is nothing new in CF. However placing all that information is one place and making it (mostly) freely available does a much better job of dissemination than a bunch of high priced Human Kinetics texts will ever do. CF has certainly made an enormous improvement in my training (and I don't follow the CF WODs). I think CFFB can do the same.

1. to be able to work on technique in practice and drills
2. to utilize these techniques with greater efficiency through improved speed/power/strength/accuracy/coordination
3. to continue to apply these techniques throughout the course of a game or match*

(*In the case of rugby, the demands of which are completely different than football.)

So the question is, why is CFFB better than another protocol for preparing athletes for football.

Let's assume we're talking about HS football players with a coach in charge of programming the S&C program from pre-season, in-season, off-season, and summer.

__________________
"It should be more like birthday party than physics class." | Log | 70's Big

If a high school kid is serious about football and plays any position other than place kicker, wouldn't they be best served by doing a pure strength program for a few months to begin the off season? I've met very few 16 year old football players who couldn't stand to gain 20 pounds of muscle.

It looks like the amateur version of CFFB is similar to SS, but with lower lift volume, back to back lifting days, and extra met cons to maintain conditioning. Why not just do starting strength for a few months and then when spring football practice picks back up, start upping the conditioning.